This invention relates to a method and apparatus for arranging on and loading a vehicle with bundles of cast iron pipes arranged head to tail, each bundle comprising an odd or even number of superimposed beds or layers of pipes having the same diameter, and each bed having an odd or even number of pipes.
In such bundles the pipes are arranged head to tail both horizontally on each bed and vertically between superimposed beds, with the female bell joint of one pipe alternating with the smooth male end of an adjacent pipe at each end of the bed. The invention may be applied to pipes having different diameters, for example between 60 and 300 mm, and may be adapted to handle pipes with even greater diameters.
The invention addresses the problem of rapidly and progressively producing bundles of pipes as they are brought onto a horizontal transporter in successive beds separated by brief interruptions on the order of 2 to 3 seconds, the pipes arriving from a manufacturing facility at a rapid rate which varies depending on their diameters, for example 400 per hour for 150 mm diameter pipes.
More specifically, the problem addressed by the invention is to pile up, without wasting time, successive beds of pipe, and to bundle them and place them on a single removal carriage located at the end of a horizontal pipe-bed transporter. Further, since a minimum amount of space should be taken up on the ground, it is desirable that this be done without using a turntable of carriages each in turn serving to receive its bed of pipes at a loading station at the end of the horizontal transporter, and without using a pair of bundle removal carriages, one of which would be loading while the other was unloading its pipes for the placing and tightening of bundle bands thereon. It can be further imagined that direct loading of a single removal carriage with piled pipes to be banded into bundles would be too slow in view of the fact that while the single removal carriage is moving away, pipes awaiting loading would already be at the end of the horizontal transporter.